Yako had no home, no family, not even a tile to his name in Konoha.
Since joining ANBU, he'd been assigned internal duties on top of fieldwork, so he simply lived within the ANBU complex.
But now, with three days off, he couldn't stay there. If a new mission came down and the captain saw him loitering, there went his break.
Wearing plain clothes, he quietly slipped out of the Forest of Death, where the ANBU base lay hidden, and wandered the streets of Konoha.
He paused and turned to stare at the Hokage Rock in the distance.
The carved faces of the First, Second, and Third Hokage loomed massive—so big they triggered a primal dread.
The closer you got to the Rock, the closer you were to the Hokage Tower, the heavier the pressure from those faces felt.
This village wasn't the bright, youthful place from the original series. It reeked of death and melancholy.
Everyone here was a little like Kakashi: teammates dead, sensei dead, friends dead. It left scars no one talked about.
A village of the mentally scarred.
It was still the Second Great Ninja War. Most shinobi were stationed on the frontlines, leaving Konoha eerily quiet.
After wandering aimlessly for half an hour, Yako decided to find a cheap place to crash.
"My wallet…?"
He only realized he'd lost it when he went to pay. No wallet in his tool pouch.
After thinking hard, he concluded he must've dropped it back at Tsurugetsu Izakaya.
He observed the izakaya from a distance for another half hour. The same voluptuous proprietress was still there.
It was already midday. If she were a spy, ANBU would've executed her overnight.
So, she wasn't a spy. Yako breathed a little easier and went in to retrieve his wallet.
The proprietress had just stepped out to dump the trash when she spotted the same handsome shinobi from last night walking toward her.
Her teeth chattered with fear.
It's over.
Had her cover been blown after all?
That young Konoha ninja wasn't just any shinobi—he'd killed her comrade in a single stab.
To protect their identities, she and her partner had never met, never even seen each other's faces. How could she be compromised?
What now?
She pretended not to see him and retreated into the izakaya, gripping a fruit knife behind the bar as she sliced lemons.
Seeing Yako sit down in front of her, she looked up and asked, "Would you like another bottle of sake?"
"I need my wallet back first. Can't buy sake without money."
"…Huh?"
She stared at him in disbelief, her fingers tightening and loosening around the knife.
He wasn't here to arrest her?
"You deaf? My wallet!"
"W-Wallet? What wallet?"
He was here… for a wallet?
The excuse was so absurd it had to be true.
After the emotional rollercoaster, her chest heaved—relief flooding in.
Yako jumped down from the high stool and walked toward the back courtyard.
She quickly blocked him. "Sir! The rear courtyard's under maintenance! You can't go back there!"
She was terrified.
When she'd awakened the night before, the room had been empty.
Her underground comrade was gone. The handsome guest was gone.
She tried every encrypted channel to contact her partner. No response.
There was a discolored patch of floor—it looked like someone had dug through and then restored it.
Yako gently pushed her aside and stepped into the courtyard. Sure enough—torn-up stone tiles, real maintenance.
"I told you, didn't I? Fine, how about this—you go rest upstairs. I'll go look for your wallet in the courtyard," she said, wrapping both arms around one of his.
"I recognize you! You're last night's guest!
Why did I black out? Why'd you disappear after that? Didn't you say we'd explore Yin and Yang Release together?"
"You fell and knocked your head. I like women who respond. Dead fish bore me."
Her arms wrapped tight around his, pressing her curves into him as they went upstairs. He asked, "What's your name?"
"Qiao Yi."
In the upstairs private room, Yako said,
"Qiao Yi, there was 150,000 ryō in that wallet. You must find it. I want my money back."
Konoha shinobi were notoriously underpaid.
A month of ANBU duty, dancing with death, had earned him 100,000. The remaining 50,000 came from what he'd shamelessly wrung out of the captain last night.
Qiao Yi went downstairs to search.
She checked the courtyard, the side room, every table and chair. No sign of the wallet.
Back upstairs, she composed herself, eyes dripping honey as she reentered the room.
"Ninja-sama, I truly couldn't find the wallet… but I must be a fool, only now realizing—you didn't really come back just for a wallet, did you?
I couldn't find it, but I can compensate you another way…"
And since she'd heard he liked enthusiasm, Qiao Yi gave it everything she had.
Back downstairs, the izakaya's first lunchtime customer had just sat down.
Ten minutes later, he looked up.
Dust was falling from the ceiling beams.
The floorboards above creaked and groaned.
Another twenty minutes passed. The private room door creaked open.
Qiao Yi adjusted her shoulder straps, panting, and shut the door.
Yako called out, "You said it—lost my wallet, so I'm staying here three days!"
"I'll find all kinds of ways to make it up to you."
Yako lay back on the futon, satisfied, drifting into a light nap.
Still young. Still green. Last night he'd thought she lacked softness and bounce.
He was wrong. Very wrong.
Three days later, Qiao Yi watched him leave with a broken heart.
Three whole days, and she hadn't gotten a single word out of him.
They'd had to reinforce the upstairs floorboards. Was every Konoha ninja this tight-lipped?
But one thing was clear now—he wasn't here to investigate her.
Yako slipped back to the ANBU complex under cover of darkness.
Inside, he opened his locker—and stared in shock.
His wallet was there.
He picked it up, dumbfounded. How?
He'd been careful. No way it was here when he left three days ago.
From behind, the captain's voice rang out—when had he even arrived?
"Fox. I took back the 50,000 I gave you. Then I added your 100,000 reward for the B-rank mission. That means your wallet's got 200,000 now. Go ahead, count it."
Counting didn't matter.
Yako only wanted to know—
Qiao Yi… that passion these past three days… ah… mm…
Wait a second. That level of enthusiasm—it was too much.
Could she actually be a spy?
ANBU didn't find anything. Or maybe she wasn't?
Didn't matter. Spy or not—Konoha's problem, not his.
Even if the whole village burned, what did it have to do with him?
Female spies were great. Always investigating… very… in-depth.
The captain said, "Come on. Mission time. The spy we caught was from Iwagakure. We're going to trace the network."
Yako donned his fox mask and sighed behind it.
The last squad sent to "trace the network" died to the last man. Spies bold enough to operate in Konoha weren't weak. You never knew who was the vine, who was the melon.
Iron-gray flak vest, standard-issue ninjatō, every detail checked—Yako followed the captain and two teammates out of ANBU HQ.
Hopefully, just a simple C-rank mission this time.